


And It's Surely Their Suggestion

by pipisafoat



Series: Abby Lyman [4]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Disability, Disabled Character, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Service Animals, Service Dogs, invisible disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 21:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12873471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: "Josh, our goal is healthy and functioning with whatever tools necessary, and for you, that might include a service dog.”





	And It's Surely Their Suggestion

He stares at the papers in front of him on Stan’s desk, the brochure in his hands. He stares until his eyes water, then he looks away from them, taking in the abstract art hanging on plain white walls as though he’s never seen the pictures in their sturdy wood frames before. Eventually, though, his attention is pulled back to the papers and brochure almost against his will. “Dogs of Destiny,” he says in a tone more fitting to reciting senators from memory.

“Dogs of Destiny,” his psychiatrist agrees, his tone more upbeat and encouraging. “Joe and I have been talking to each other and to Dr Keyworth from ATVA, and we want you to seriously consider this idea.”

Josh turns to the chair beside him, glad Donna offered - or insisted, he would argue - to come to this appointment with him. “A dog,” he tells her, and her serene nod makes his eyes narrow as he connects the dots. “You knew they were going to tell me this. That’s why you’re here.”

“Stanley asked me to be here for you, for this conversation,” she confirms with a sharp nod.

He shakes his head. “Now you’re talking to my therapist behind my back?”

Donna smiles at him, but he can see the uncertainty lurking in her eyes.

“I suppose that’s what I get for giving you permission to do exactly that,” he mutters as though to himself, watching the relief flood Donna’s features. “What do you think of all this?” he asks, tossing the papers onto Stan’s desk and leaning forward onto it, twisting his neck uncomfortably to continue watching her face. Donna has learned since joining the campaign how to mask her emotions to get a job done, but he’s still been able to read her, not to mention her tendency to drop the mask for personal matters.

She hesitates, leans on her right elbow on the edge of the desk, and sets her left hand on Josh’s forearm. He clenches his teeth and doesn’t startle away from the touch. “I think it’s a serious option to consider. I think you know you can’t keep going the way you have been. I can’t always be there to help you the way I am now, Josh. We need a long-term solution.”

“That’s not fair to you,” he agrees quietly. “What about pills, though? Why aren’t they a long-term solution?”

“We are working on your medications, just as we have been since your diagnosis,” Stan answers in the gentle tone that always sets Josh on edge. Nobody uses that tone unless they’re about to deliver bad news. “We won’t stop trying to get your medications better. Getting a service dog is what you do when the traditional options aren’t working on their own, but it doesn’t mean you stop with your meds or with therapy. It’s just another kind of treatment, not replacing anything but added on.”

“So you don’t think I’ll find the right combination of meds,” Josh asks, surprised when his tone is more defeated than questioning.

The moment of silence is more than enough answer for him, but even as his shoulders slump, Stan offers him words. “It is extremely rare to find an answer in medication alone that returns a person with PTSD to their healthy, pre-PTSD baseline. With therapy, it’s possible, but it takes years. Josh, our goal is healthy and functioning with whatever tools necessary, and for you, that might include a service dog.”

He swallows as hard as he can, but the lump in his throat and the stinging in his eyes doesn’t go away. Donna squeezes his arm gently. “Okay, but … the White House,” he says, wincing at the whining tinge to his voice.

“Who would object?” Donna asks him in the tone he’s come to understand means ‘Be reasonable, Josh.’ “You answer to Leo and the President alone, and they’re both supportive of you. The President loves dogs, anyway,” she adds with a teasing tone, but he can’t find it in him to respond with their usual banter.

“There’s probably a rule about it,” he says, wracking his brain. Dogs in the White House. 

Stan smiles at him. “There is. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects your—“

“Right,” Josh interrupts. He’s more than passingly familiar with the ADA after a fight over amending it during their first year in the White House, but he’ll have to drag the details out of the depths of his memory. “But in the White House?”

“In the White House,” Stan confirms.

He knows when he’s beaten - on that detail, at least. “I’m not agreeing,” Josh tells the pair looking expectantly at him, “but tell me how it would work.”

Stan points to the top paper in the small bundle Josh had been looking over earlier. “Dogs of Destiny would need your information - I can send records to speed it up, or you can fill out their paperwork yourself. They review it to decide if you qualify for one of their dogs by their standards. I’m not familiar with their exact requirements, but Dr Keyworth seems certain you’ll be approved quickly. Once you’re approved, they’ll help you with the financial side and start matching you with a specific dog. When you’re matched, it can take up to two years, but when your dog is ready, they have you come to their facilities for a seven day intensive training course with you and the dog before sending you home with your new partner.”

He pulls his arm out from under Donna’s hand and leans back in his chair to hide the shiver that runs through him. If he agrees to this scheme, it could be two years before he gets the help. Two years of relying on Donna, except he can’t do that for two years, and he can’t get through a quiet day much less the kind of days Leo hired him to do without Donna’s help. If it takes two years, he’s going to need a new job while he waits. Never mind Leo’s jumping in the hole with him; if he can’t do the job, he can’t have the job. Maybe they’ll rehire him after he has a service dog.

Shit. He’s thinking about it like he’s already agreed. A quick glance shows Donna looking hopeful and concerned at the same time. He clears his throat and addresses Stan; the psychiatrist isn’t showing much in the way of emotions, a safer bet for talking about the service dog without locking himself into anything. “What’s the financial side?”

Stan raises an eyebrow, and it’s Donna who answers. “Service dogs are expensive,” she explains. “Most of them are purebred, so the value of the puppy is high to start with. Then there’s the cost of regular vet visits, necessary shots, and a microchip in case the dog is lost. Food, treats, toys, collar, leash, vest - all the things a dog needs. Not to mention the cost of the training itself. They can help you with fundraising to pay for the dog or set up payment plans.”

He thinks back to Stan’s speech, looking for another way out and another way in at the same time. “What makes the dog ready for me? Why would it take two years?”

“Training,” Donna replies, and he wonders how much advance warning she had to research this process. “All their dogs have the same foundations in training, so your dog has to finish the foundations and then any work or tasks you need specifically. They’ll discuss your individual needs before pairing you with a dog. How long it takes depends on how much training your dog has when you’re matched, so how much more training they need before your week together.”

“I can’t take a full week off work,” he argues, wondering why he feels both terrified and relieved by that proclamation.

Donna reaches for his arm again, slowly, projecting her intentions, and he allows her hand to fall on his forearm and squeeze gently but firmly. “You can. You will. We’ll talk to Leo and figure it out.”

“Okay, but I can’t take care of a dog when I work all day and often all night.”

“The dog goes to work with you,” Stan puts in. “Josh, that’s the entire purpose of a service dog. It goes where you go and helps you.”

He glares half-heartedly at the psychiatrist, but the look is broken when Donna squeezes his arm again. She taps a finger against the inside of his wrist and waits until he’s taken two slow, deep breaths before speaking.

“Do you want to hear about a typical day in the White House with a service dog?” she offers, and he shakes his head. Too close to admitting he’ll do it.

“Tell me what the dog is trained to do.”

Stan and Donna exchange a look, but it’s the psychiatrist who responds. “Well, they start with basic obedience - that’s sit, down, stay, walking on a leash, those sorts of things - and public access skills - walking around in public without getting distracted or scared. Then the things they do for you to help with your PTSD are called tasks. Or work.”

Donna clears her throat, and when Stan nods at her, she speaks. “A task is something they’re trained to do on command. Work is something they’re always looking for and do without a command. If you told your dog ‘pressure’ and he laid on your legs, that’s a task. If he detects your heart rate rising, like it does when you get anxious, if he alerts you to that heart rate, that’s work because you don’t give him a command to do it.”

“What would he - or she - be trained to do for me? What would help, make it worth having a service dog? Or is that something Dogs of Destiny decides?” he asks. He wants to give them a chance to convince him, but mostly he’s glad Donna is over prepared and he doesn’t need to remember every word.

“They ultimately decide, but they’ll work with the two of you and with me, Joe, and Dr Keyworth to figure out what might help,” Stan explains. 

“As for what would help,” Donna interjects, “I think the pressure therapy and an alert for your anxiety attacks would work wonders. When I spoke to them,” and of _course_ she’s already talked to them, “they said the best thing to do is make a list of what’s hard or impossible to do now that you could do before or need or want to do. Then try to come up with ways a dog can help. If you have your problem list when you talk to them, they’ll help you come up with tasks for the dog.”

Problem list. Josh knows some things that would go on that list without even thinking about it. His inability to go into or near a crowd. The way he can’t move whenever he sees someone with a shaved head. His reaction to sirens that’s now spread to the flashing emergency lights. The panic attacks. The anger. The way he feels separated from his anger outbursts or sometimes just during everyday life.

“Dissociation,” Stan says, and Josh jerks his attention to his psychiatrist.

“Yeah, that,” he says, trying to pretend he knew he was making his list aloud.

“How do you spell that?” Donna asks, and Stan leans over his desk to look at her list.

“You got it right,” he confirms.

“Thanks. What else, Josh?” she asks, turning concerned eyes on him,

He shrugs, takes a few slow, deep breaths to try to turn the concern down.

“The dog can wear a vest with pockets so you’ll always have your pills on hand,” Stan puts in.

Donna nods. “Dogs of Destiny says that doesn’t count as a task, but it is helpful. What about training the dog to come find me if you need more help than it can give you?”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Josh agrees. “Can it lead me to the exit when we’re out, if I start having an episode? Tell me if people are coming up behind me? Maybe keep people from getting too close?”

There’s a moment of silence before Donna tells him, “I don’t know, but I’ll write them all down and we can ask.”

He takes another deep breath, then nods. “Okay. I guess … Stan, send my records and I’ll at least talk to them.”

Donna’s hand slides back onto his forearm and squeezes again. He wonders for a tiny moment how she knows his heart is pounding at this decision, but the smile on her face is for once free of concern. “I’m proud of you,” she tells him quietly, and something unknots in his chest at her freely given support.


End file.
